The Abortionist's Daughter

With a title like THE ABORTIONIST'S DAUGHTER, Elisabeth Hyde's latest novel is bound to touch upon the controversial. In fact, Hyde is no stranger to tackling heavy subjects. In her last book, the crossover CRAZY AS CHOCOLATE, she wrote about the suicide of a mentally ill 41-year-old mother and the damaging effect it had on her husband and young daughters. Not exactly light reading.

True-to-form and with the same audacity she exhibited in her prior work, Hyde addresses all sides of the abortion issue head-on while still managing to create a palpable, non-preachy book for her readers. A gripping thriller that will entice even those not particularly fond of the suspense genre, THE ABORTIONIST'S DAUGHTER delivers a rare but successful breed show more of multi-faceted morality and adrenalin-infused action that purely satisfies.

Dr. Diana Duprey is one tough cookie. She is the director of the Center for Reproductive Choice in a small town near Denver, Colorado, and refuses to dole out excuses to anyone about the job she does, despite the fact that she has a 19-year-old, sexually active daughter; a son (deceased) with Down syndrome; and a husband who spent the last 20 years working as a prosecuting attorney in the District Attorney's office. She plans to keep performing abortions for women in need, regardless of the incessant protests outside her clinic and the barrage of threats from members of the right-to-life activist group, the Lifeblood Coalition --- until her body is found floating in the pool outside her home, two weeks before Christmas.

Enter 26-year-old Huck and his partner, 36-year-old Ernie --- two detectives assigned to the Duprey case, and the first to show up at the scene of the crime aside from Frank, Diana's husband. Frank is apparently the last person who saw Diana alive (or so Huck and Ernie assume) and is suspiciously at the house when the cops arrive to assess the damage. Broken shards of glass are found scattered near the ficus tree, the kitchen is in disarray, and there is a horrific bruise the size of a grapefruit on Diana's neck. The prognosis doesn't look good for Frank, who was also overheard fighting with his wife earlier that evening, right around the time she was killed.

To make matters more complicated, Diana's daughter, Megan, also had a fight with her mother at lunch over a spring-break trip to Mexico, and Megan's ex-boyfriend, Bill, had become a serious threat to both her and Megan's well-being. Apparently, he just couldn't get over the break-up a year ago, and his nagging phone calls and unannounced house visits were becoming a maybe-it's-time-to-get-that-restraining-order problem. Reverend Stephen O'Connell, the founder of the Lifeblood Coalition, had more than one reason to want Dr. Duprey dead, including the fact that she refused to prevent his son's 15-year-old girlfriend, Rose, from having an abortion, on the grounds that she believed it was the girl's decision in the long run. She also wouldn't advise Rose to terminate the pregnancy as Rose's parents had hoped, because of the very same principles. This, of course, made Rose's parents extremely angry --- especially after their daughter almost killed herself while trying to scrape the fetus out with a bike pump and chopsticks. But angry enough to kill?

As December rolls into January and January into February, Huck and Ernie sift through the facts and weigh their options. Huck gets a little too close to Megan for his own good, Frank grows more and more depressed, and Bill continues to act the role of eager apprentice --- handing off clues to the detectives as if his contributions could somehow crack the case and bring Megan back to him. Three-quarters of the way through the book, the case still hasn't been solved and readers might find themselves staying up way past their bedtime in order to solve this exhilarating whodunit.

Warning: when the murderer's identity is finally revealed, some suspense/thriller buffs might feel let down by the seeming simplicity of the solution. There isn't much of a showdown, nor are you utterly shocked by the outcome. Nonetheless, the instant-replay of events that transpired during the hours immediately prior to Dr. Duprey's death is immensely satisfying and readers surely will let out a collective sigh of relief following the book's conclusion.

~Submitted by Alexis Burling~ show less

I really liked the book but the title isn't great. I suspect since the success of the book "The Timetraveller's wife" publishers just hope to make a book successful by using the "the 's " titles. It's not only about the daughter. It deals with a family falling apart because of the violent death of one member. In this aspect it reminded me of "Songs for the Missing" by Stewart O'Nan I read earlier this year. I particularly liked the story being told from three different viewpoints - daughter, father and detective and how it dealt with the topic of abortion throughout the book.

Just what I needed for a light read: read quickly but able to put it down. Full of entanglements and people's erroneous assumptions about others. Very melodramatic teens, I started thinking they should just grow up. The use of drugs (ecstasy by the teens, pot by the mother) was presented matter of factly, not as something horribly illicit, which bothered me. I suppose other people could be just as bothered by the fact of providing abortions, but that is definitely treated as controversial in this story. I'd probably read another by this author, but I'm not looking for this to be a series.

Two weeks before Christmas, Diana Duprey, an outspoken abortion doctor, is found floating in her pool, a bruise the size of a golf ball visible through her dark curls. A national figure, Diana inspired passion and ignited tempers, never more so than on the day of her death." "Her husband, Frank, an attorney in the D.A.'s office for more than twenty years, had fought bitterly with her on the day of her murder. Yet to reveal the nature of their fight would cost him not only his career but something greater still - a relationship he will go to any lengths to protect. Diana's daughter, Megan, a college freshman, had also quarreled with Diana that day, and her role in her mother's murder will prove more significant than she ever could have show more anticipated. The Reverend Stephen O'Connell, founder of the town's pro-life coalition, obviously had issues with Diana, but his anger extended beyond the political to the personal - namely, Dr. Duprey's involvement with his own troubled teenager. Meanwhile, the detective on the case grapples to make sense of it all. His investigation implicates many in this town and reveals a series of gross miscalculations, each one challenging what we know, or think we know, about community, fidelity, justice, and love. show less

Meh. This is an OK book for killing time while traveling. But I think anyone that was, say, an English major once upon a time or cares about language will find it hard to ignore the poor character development, erratic pacing and unbelievable police work.

The author--a wife and mother--doesn't know how to establish the relationship between mother and daughter. Were there some other kids? I forget already. Worse, she doesn't describe well at all the critical relationship between the girl and her high school boyfriend--how and why the girl is attracted to the guy. It's *summarized.* The girl is the daughter of a gynecologist/obstetrician/abortionist yet when she begins to have sex, frequently at that, neither party gives a thought to show more contraception.

Forget the mother's role here. The book takes place in the present age, the girl is supposed to be popular, the high school doesn't appear to be in the Bible Belt: Elisabeth Hyde, you don't think girls and their male peers aren't talking about sex, condoms and other contraceptives all the time? Now perhaps the girl is acting out her resentment of her mother or something ... but nowhere is this hinted at. As I say, this crucial relationship between the girl and boy is just summarized.

Yet Hyde goes into quite a few details about the life of the youngish cop on the case, supplying bits of business about his relationship with his girlfriend. Maybe she has a series in mind--in which case, he should be even more front and center. Instead, it's mostly from the POV of the husband/father character.

And, oh yeah, how about the ridiculous bit when nude pix of the girl are found on a porn site *and the cops decide not to tell her*? Ah, yes, it's so easy to keep these internet things secret. Moreover, all you (or the police or a lawyer such as the father) would have to do is threaten the website or the host with holy hell and/or damages and the photos would be taken down instantly. Her age is beside the point: the site needs the subject's permission. It would need the subject's permission even if she weren't nude. And the author is a lawyer?! We're fortunate that she dropped out of that profession. show less

Fairly early on I went - this character is going to be the killer.
I didn't buy Hank and Megan's relationship. I didn't get what he saw in her. He is 7 years older than him. He is a grown man with a career and a house. She comes across as a scared confused little girl. She is legally an adult - barely, but she is still a kid. Why is he so fascinated by her? He sees her and what she is so beautiful he can't get her our of his head? He is acting like an idiot.
When Diana talks about by preforming the abortion she is just pushing the reset button it made me think of the anti drinking and driving commercial that say life doesn't have a rewind button.

This was an odd one - not a bad read, with some interesting points raised around the subject of abortion, and some elements that surprised me too, particularly the way in which the victim's family were pretty much left to fend for themselves when they weren't allowed back into the house as it was a crime scene. Does it really happen this way? I wouldn't know but was a bit surprised all the same.

On the face of it this is a standard whoddunit, but structured differently from the norm. The author sets up a scenario when any one of three or four people could have 'dunnit', but in the end it was a toss-up which one it was. The police's role seemed not so much to solve the crime (did they do any detecting?) as to get in the way.